Tough Night, Tough Morning
by shameless butterfly
Summary: OC-centric, manga canon. Every Sentouki knows what's supposed to happen, but not every name comes with a happy ending. When you've waited and waited and you still don't have a Sacrifice, even the simplest of exercises is a chore.
1. Tough Night

**Disclaimer**: Loveless isn't mine. I'm making no profit from this story.

**Warnings**: Somewhat graphically described self-harm.

**Author's Note**: Nothing to say about this, really. Someone wanted some insight into this girl's head, so I wrote some.

Reviews are loved, but please don't review just to flame me for having OCs -- the term isn't synonymous with Mary-Sue, despite what some people seem to think. I like my OCs, and I like to write about them.

**Tough Night**

Night training is never easy, but tonight's is the worst in months. Mission S always feels like a cruel joke, and inexperienced teams always lose at Mission B before Megumi can get to them. She's stuck against the teams that aren't surprised by her, that know her and know how to beat her.

When her hip's been hurting all day fighting is always the last thing she wants to do, but she tries, even though she never wins battles royal. Tonight she's managed to defeat two teams so far -- not bad for a newbie, maybe, but not up to her standards either.

Her personal best is five, and that's not great either, but there's only so much she can take by herself.

She's leaning against a wall, clutching her hip and trying to catch her breath, when the next team shows up. She knows the Sacrifice, takes one of his classes, but she's never met the Sentouki before. He still has his ears and his hair is five different colors, and she wonders if that creativity means that he'll be good with spells too.

"We challenge you!" he yells, almost the second he sees her, and for a second she just wants to refuse. All the running around has made the pain in her hip practically unbearable, and she doesn't know if she can handle a battle on top of that -- but she's too proud to surrender, so she stands up straight and forces a grin.

"I accept. Systems on."

She can feel the energy being pulled from her and she realizes that she's exhausted. Even if she wins this battle, she won't be able to win the next. But that doesn't mean she's willing to give up.

"I declare a battle by wordspell," she says slowly, quietly; a deliberate contrast to the high-energy Sentouki in front of her. "My name is... my name is Limitless."

Only it isn't. Her name is Watanabe Megumi; Limitless is just some higher power's idea of a joke. But she doesn't say that, not now.

"We are Shameless. We're not ashamed to crush you!"

The Shameless Sentouki is creative, as she'd feared, but he's also attached to his Sacrifice. She tries to prey on that, restraining him, blindfolding him, and for a minute the Sentouki seems distracted by it.

For a minute.

Then he grins and guides a wave of sharp, stabbing pain right at her hip, and he high-fives his Sacrifice when she falls to her knees in agony.

The Shameless Sacrifice offers her a hand, but she refuses to take it. She stays on her knees as they walk away, and only after she's alone in the hallway does she struggle to her feet -- she's too proud to let anyone see her like this, grabbing the windowsill to pull herself up, leaning against the wall because she can't stay on her feet without support.

It hurts. It hurts a lot. But that's nothing new.

She's not quite sure how she manages to make it to her room when she can barely stand, but somehow she does, and by the time she's there she's furious. It's not fair to make her fight against teams, it's not fair that she doesn't have a Sacrifice, it's not fair that she has to hurt so much -- it's just not _fair_, any of it, and she's so angry that she's shaking as she collapses onto the bed.

She only sits there for a minute before she's up again, moving things, tossing stuffed animals onto the bed as she tries to find what she's looking for. It's not really necessary to hide things but she does it anyway, even though it makes finding them difficult when she's in a mood like this.

Once she finds the box she's looking for she calms down a little, but she's trembling as she sits back down on the bed. It's not that she's scared or ashamed or anything else like that -- there's nothing wrong with what she's going to do. If it helps her, who is anyone else to tell her that it's bad?

She tells herself that, at least, but she still feels just a little bit guilty. It's hard to believe in herself when everyone tells her that she's wrong, and that guilt is enough to make her pause, make her wonder if it's worth it. If she can just calm down -- but thinking back on the night's events angers her, reminds her how unfair it is, and she can't think straight, and her hands shake as she opens the box and fumbles for what she needs.

If she listens to that guilt she might calm down, but she's too impulsive to want to try. This will calm her down too, she reasons, and it's easier than trying to fight it -- it's always easier to do the "wrong" thing, and that convinces her that it's not so wrong after all.

So she pushes up her left sleeve and unwinds the bandages. There's no reason for her wrist to be bandaged, really -- there are scars and bruises but no open wounds -- but she likes it that way. When it's bandaged she doesn't have to look at what the scars can't hide, the word "limitless" encircling her wrist in bold dark letters that refuse to fade.

The first cut slashes through the "e", and she hisses in a breath and waits a moment before she moves again. Her hand shakes worse than ever. She can almost see the grin on the Shameless Sentouki's face from when he cheerfully attacked her weakest point.

The second cut crosses the bottom of her palm. She'll have trouble writing tomorrow.

After the fourth she starts to cry.

Her hand slips on the sixth, and she goes too deep, too long, and that scares her but she doesn't stop. Seven, eight... even though she's shaking too hard to be accurate she doesn't give up until she slips again, until there's too much blood.

But at least she can't see her name anymore. The sticky-dark red covers it completely, and even though she knows she'll be in trouble she can't help but feel relieved. Maybe the scars will stay this time. Maybe they'll cover the word, or at least make it obvious that she wants nothing to do with it. And that's all that matters, really.

She wraps the bandages back around her wrist and puts everything away, and she smiles just a little as she grabs an old sweatshirt from her closet door -- the one with bleach stains from the last time she used it for this, to hide the red-stained bandages until she gets to the infirmary. She's not stupid. She knows that when she slips up she can't deal with it herself.

Her hip still hurts, and she's still so shaky she can barely stay on her feet, but she laughs a little as she steps into the hallway. She's calm now, happy even. How can something that makes her happy be bad?


	2. Tough Morning

**Disclaimer**: Loveless isn't mine. I'm making no profit from this story.

**Tough Morning**

Watanabe Megumi loves stuffed animals. Her room is full of them, sitting on shelves and the dresser and her bed.

When she first came to Shichisei Gakuen she carried one around, a big stuffed bear that was constantly dangling from one hand or clutched to her chest. She grew out of that, eventually, but seven years later she still sleeps with that same bear.

Even when she's in the infirmary, as she so often is. As she is tonight.

It's obviously the same bear -- worn and well-loved and not quite as fuzzy as it once was -- tucked into the crook of her right arm now as she sleeps. She clung to it as she got stitches in the deepest of the fresh cuts on her wrist, and she fell asleep with her face pressed against its head; her arm has fallen to her side now, and the bear is only a restless squirm away from tumbling to the floor.

She calls it -- she calls _him_ (she claims the bear is male, though she never explains how she can tell) Less, even though the name embroidered on the bright blue ribbon around his neck is longer. She never calls him Limitless anymore, just as she objects to being called by that name herself.

It's telling, perhaps, that she keeps him so close even when she curses the name she gave him. It's more telling that even now, when she doesn't carry him everywhere she goes, she sometimes brings him along when she fights.

A makeshift Sacrifice made of plush and stuffing.

She shifts a little in her sleep, and her arm extends just enough to let Less tumble out of her grasp; he falls to the floor, and she rolls onto her side and doesn't notice. He lies there, unmissed, for hours.

It isn't until morning, when the infirmary becomes too bright and loud for Megumi to stay asleep, that she notices his absence. It takes a moment; for a second or two she's calm, propping herself up on one elbow and rubbing sleepily at her eyes.

Then she realizes that he's not there, and she starts to worry. When she can't find him by feeling around on the bed, she starts to panic.

She's tired and stressed and not thinking rationally, so she's almost in tears by the time someone scoops him up and drops him in her lap. She doesn't immediately realize how he got there -- she's too busy hugging him close in relief. When it finally registers in her sleep-fogged mind that stuffed animals can't fly she looks up, cheeks going red when she realizes who Less' savior is.

"Thank you, sensei," she says, staring down at Less instead of looking at the man standing at the foot of the bed.

"Why are you here, Megumi?" Ritsu asks. His tone is flat, emotionless, and even when she looks up Megumi can't read his expression. She doesn't know what answer he wants. The reason is obvious, she thinks. Frowning, she holds up her wrist, shows him the bandages.

"Because I --"

Ritsu shakes his head and she stops, letting her arm fall to her lap.

"Did you lose a fight?" he asks. "Did you _win_ a fight? Did one of your classmates remind you that you have no Sacrifice? I know what you did. Tell me why." Even though his words are hurtful there's still no emotion in his voice, and somehow that makes it worse than it would be if he was clearly angry.

Megumi is silent for a minute as she tries to find the right words, but with Ritsu staring at her she can't seem to think. "I don't know," she finally says, and her voice is emotionless too, because she's not going to let it shake in front of him.

"You don't know," he says, disbelieving, and she nods even though it's not true. She knows, but not in words; she knows in feelings that don't translate and that would sound stupid if spoken aloud.

Ritsu shakes his head but does not question her further. She's thankful for that. Ritsu has a way of being nasty that bothers her much more than she'd like to admit.

"Go back to sleep," he tells her as he turns away. "You're excused from your classes for the day. And leave your wrist alone."

"Yes, sensei," she says, but he's already gone.

Ritsu's orders are absolute, even if she doesn't like them, so she lies back down and pulls the blanket over her face so it's not too bright to sleep. She curls up on her side and hugs Less close, wishing she could just forget about all of this.

But Ritsu's words won't leave her head, and her wrist hurts underneath the too-tight bandages, and not even Less can make her feel any less stupid. She knows that what she does is stupid. She knows that it's unhealthy.

And she knows, more than anything else, that whatever god wrote Limitless on her arm was playing a nasty joke, and if he won't erase it she'll just have to do it herself.


End file.
